Posted on 02/13/2015 12:32:32 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Large ancient-DNA study uncovers population that moved westwards 4,500 years ago.
A mysterious group of humans from the east stormed western Europe 4,500 years ago -- bringing with them technologies such as the wheel, as well as a language that is the forebear of many modern tongues, suggests one of the largest studies of ancient DNA yet conducted. Vestiges of these eastern emigres exist in the genomes of nearly all contemporary Europeans, according to the authors, who analysed genome data from nearly 100 ancient Europeans.
...last year, a study of the genomes of ancient and contemporary Europeans found echoes not only of these two waves from the Middle East, but also of an enigmatic third group that they said could be from farther east... a team led by David Reich, an evolutionary and population geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, analysed nuclear DNA from the bodies of 69 individuals who lived across Europe between 8,000 and 3,000 years ago. They also examined previously published genome data from another 25 ancient Europeans, including Otzi, the 5,300-year-old 'ice man' who was discovered on the Italian-Austrian border.
Their analysis confirmed the arrival of Middle Eastern farmers in Europe between 8,000 and 7,000 years ago. But the team also found proof of a previously unknown migration, beginning several thousand years later. DNA recovered from steppe herders that lived in western Russia around 5,000 years ago closely matched that of 4,500-year-old individuals from Germany, who were part of a group known as the Corded Ware culture.
The herders, named the Yamnaya, lived in present-day Russia and Ukraine and represent "a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery", Reich and his team say...
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
[Getty graphic caption] Artifacts similar to these pottery vesssels from Sweden are found across northern Europe, and give the Corded Ware culture its name. Ancient DNA suggests that the group was related to the Yamnaya people who lived in present-day Russia.
IOW, the Corded Ware culture's genes can now be found in a population to the east -- meaning that they migrated eastward, leaving their former homeland behind. NOT the other way around. :')
Eastern Europe is mostly Slavic. Hungarian is related to Turkish, Estonian and Finnish - the Ugaritic/Altaic language family.
Romanian of course is descended from the Vulgar Latin brought by the Romans when they conquered Dacia in the Second Century.
Ah yes; it all makes sense now, it does sum up the article nicely.
Indo-European philologists figured this out long before they had DNA analysis.
There conclusions were based on the common words for specific types of plants and animals.
It’s amazing how we can now look into the past using DNA. Used to be researchers only had the study of languages and artifacts to determine origins and migrations.
Of course I'm only going to be ridiculed for saying this.
They did not speak Hebrew in early Genesis ... the best reasonable guess would be a language similar to Aramaic. The Jewish people were in Egypt from the time of Joseph until the time of Moses ... and the language they most likely spoke there was Egyptian. The development of the Hebrew language would have been post-Exodus, and Babel was early Genesis.
Is there no way that the moderator can give Sunk some sort of "Yellow Card" for that sort of foul?
Those Jews who had stayed around Israel running the place for the conquerors while the captives were away, spoke Aramaic, which was the common language of the place. After the return, Hebrew became first a sort of liturgical, then scholarly language, necessary in the Temple.
The OT was written in various tongues, Hebrew among them, but was translated into Greek by Jewish Scholars who needed to get it into the hands of Hellenic Jews all over the Mediterranean who no longer spoke their native languages.
bump for later
Turkish is in the Altaic family, there is no Ugaritic-Altaic family (Ugarit spoke a Semitic tongue).
Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian are Finno-Ugric, part of the Uralic family.
Romanian is a Romance language bouillabaisse.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/romanian.htm
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/meglenoromanian.htm
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/aromanian.htm
https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/IE_Non.html
and these aren’t really related, but interesting:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/romansh.htm
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/romany.htm
Soccer? Really? ;’)
The DNA studies can show where genes have survived, but don’t really help with geographic origins, not least because the sample size of ancient DNA is ridiculously small, but mostly because people move around, and do so surprisingly rapidly. The mass movement of population is more the rule than the exception, because travel in groups was considerably safer.
The Indo-European tongues don’t have a common term for large bodies of water, which is believed to point to an origin in Central Asia. Each branch of the group picked up different loanwords for ocean and sea. :’)
The Edicts of Ashoka (India, Mauryan empire) were carved on pillars and other large stones, and placed at the frontiers of his realm. There are dozens known, and each was carved in whatever local language prevailed. At least three up in Afghanistan-Pakistan are in Aramaic, a language probably introduced when the Israelite tribes were rounded up and exiled by the Assyrians to the frontiers of their empire. The Ashkenazy or European Jews show their Middle Eastern heritage in their DNA; their ancestors got to eastern Europe in the same manner and at the same time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AsokaKandahar.jpg
http://www.varchive.org/ce/baalbek/gozan.htm
http://www.varchive.org/ce/baalbek/khazars.htm
Looks like the steppe theory of Indo-European origins is winning out over the Anatolian theory, unless the earlier middle eastern farmers that spread into Europe were also Indo-European.
At least as regards the source of Indo European in Europe. Of course the ultimate origin of Indo European is still up for grabs, as one has to account for the Hittites, the Iranians, the Aryans in India, and the steppe peoples.
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